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There was an angry shout and a young officer appeared from the entrance of one of the huts. He pulled out an automatic and pointed it at St Claire’s head.
St Claire ignored him. ‘Hang on to your pride, boy, you’ll find it’s all you have.’
He went off like a strong wind and they had to run to keep up with him, the young officer cursing wildly. Strange the sense of personal loss as I found myself alone again but I was no longer tired – St Claire had taken care of that at least.
They left me there for another hour, long enough for the evening chill to eat right into my bones and then a door opened and an n.c.o. appeared and called to my guard who kicked my leg viciously and sent me on my way.
Inside the hut, I found a long corridor, several doors opening off. We stopped at the end one and after a while it opened and St Claire was marched out. There was no time to speak for a young officer beckoned me inside.
The man behind the desk wore the uniform of a colonel in the Army of the People’s Republic of China, presumably the Chen-Kuen St Claire had mentioned.
The eyes lifted slightly at the corners, shrewd and kindly in a bronzed healthy face and the lips were well-formed and full of humour. He unfolded a newspaper and held it up so that I could see it. The Daily Express printed in London five days earlier according to the date. English war hero dies in Vietnam. The headline sprawled across the front page.
I said ‘They must have been short of news that day.’
His English was excellent. ‘Oh, I don’t think so. They all took the story, even The Times.’ He held up a copy. ‘They managed to get an interview with your grandfather. It says here that the general was overwhelmed by his loss, but proud.’
I laughed out loud at that one and the colonel said gravely, ‘Yes, I found that a trifle ironic myself when one considers his intense dislike of you. Almost pathological. I wonder why?’
A remark so penetrating could not help but chill the blood, but I fought back. ‘And what in hell are you supposed to be – a mind reader?’
He picked up a manilla file. ‘Ellis Jackson from birth to death. It’s all there. We must talk about Eton some time. I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of the place. The Sandhurst affair was certainly a great tragedy. You got the dirty end of the stick there.’ He sighed heavily, as if feeling the whole thing personally and keenly. ‘In my early years as a student at London University, I read a novel by Ouida in which the hero, a Guards officer in disgrace, joins the French Foreign Legion. Nothing changes, it appears.’
‘That’s it exactly,’ I said. ‘I’m here to redeem the family honour.’
‘And yet you hated the idea of going into the army,’ he said. ‘Hated anything military. Or is it just your grandfather you hate?’
‘Neat enough in theory,’ I said. ‘On the other hand, I never met anyone yet who had a good word for him.’
I could have kicked myself at the sight of his smile, the satisfaction in his eyes. Already I was telling him things about myself. I think he must have sensed what was in my mind for he pressed a button on the desk and stood up.
‘General St Claire spoke to you earlier, I believe?’
‘That’s right.’
‘A remarkable man – gifted in many directions, but arrogant. You may share his cell for a while.’
‘An enlisted man with the top brass. He might not like that.’
‘My dear Ellis, our social philosophy does not recognise such distinctions between human beings. He must learn this. So must you.’
‘Ellis.’ It gave me a strange, uncomfortable feeling to be called by my Christian name. Too intimate under the circumstances, but there was nothing I could do about it. The door opened and the young officer entered.
Chen-Kuen smiled amicably and put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Sleep, Ellis – a good, long sleep and then we speak again.’
What was it St Claire had said of him? One of the nicest guys you’ve ever met? The father I’d never known perhaps and my throat went dry at the thought of it. Deep waters certainly – too damned deep and I turned and got out of there fast.
During the journey to Tay Son, we had made overnight stops twice at mountain villages. I had been put on display, a rope around my neck, as an example of the kind of mad-dog mercenary the Americans were using in Vietnam, a murderer of women and children.
It almost got me just that, the assembled villagers baying for my blood like hounds in full cry and each time, the earnest young officer, a dedicated disciple of Mao and Uncle Ho, intervened on my behalf. I must survive to learn the error of my ways. I was a typical product of the capitalist imperialist tradition. I must be helped. Simple behaviourist psychology, of course. The blow followed by kindness so that you never knew where you were.
Something similar happened on leaving Colonel Chen-Kuen’s office. I was marched across the compound to one of the huts which turned out to be the medical centre.
The young officer left me in charge of a guard. After a while, the doctor appeared, a small, thin woman in an immaculate white coat with steel spectacles, a face like tight leather and the smallest mouth I’ve ever seen in my life. She bore an uncanny resemblance to my grandfather’s housekeeper during my early childhood, a little, vinegary lowland Scot who had never been able to forgive John Knox and therefore hated all things male. I could taste the castor oil for the first time in years and shuddered.
She sat down at her desk and the door opened again and another woman entered. A different proposition entirely. She was one of those women whose sensuality was so much a part of her that even the rather unflattering tunic and skirt of her uniform, the knee-length leather boots, could not hide it.
Her hair was jet black, parted in the centre, worn in two plaits wound into a bun at the back in a very Eastern European style, which wasn’t surprising in view of the fact that her mother, as I discovered later, was Russian.
The face was the face of one of those idols to be seen in temples all over the East. The Earth Mother who destroys all men, great, hooded, calm eyes, wide, sensual mouth. One could strive on her forever, seeking the sum total of all pleasures and finding, in the end, that the pit was bottomless.
She had only the slightest of accents and her voice was indescribably beautiful. ‘I am Madame Ny. I am to be your instructor.’
‘Well, I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean,’ I said, ‘But it sounds nice.’
The old doctor spoke to her in Chinese. Madame Ny nodded. ‘You will undress now, Mr Jackson. The doctor wishes to examine you.’
I was so tired that undressing was an effort, but I finally made it down to my underpants. The doctor glanced up from a file she was examining, frowned in exasperation.
Madame Ny said, ‘Everything, please, Mr Jackson.’
I tried to keep it light. ‘Even the Marine Corps let you keep this much on.’
‘You are ashamed to be seen so and by a doctor?’ She seemed genuinely surprised. ‘There is nothing obscene in the human form. A most unhealthy attitude.’
‘That’s me,’ I said. ‘Cold showers just never seemed to work.’
She leaned down to speak to the doctor and again they examined a file between them, presumably mine.
I peeled off like a good boy and waited. I must have stood there for twenty minutes or more and during that time various individuals, both men and women, came and went with files and papers. A study in conscious humiliation.
When it had presumably been judged I’d been punished enough, the doctor stood up abruptly and went to work. She gave me a thorough and competent examination, I’ll say that for her, even to the extent of taking blood and urine samples.
Finally, she pulled forward a chair, sat down and proceeded to examine my genitals with scrupulous efficiency. It was the kind of free-from-infection check that soldiers the world over get every few months. That didn’t make it any easier to take, especially with Madame Ny standing at her shoulder and following every move.
I squirmed, mainly at the old girl’s rough handling and Madame Ny said softly, ‘You find this disturbing, is it not so, Mr Jackson? A basic, clinical examination carried out by a woman old enough to be your mother and yet you find it shameful.’
‘Why don’t you jump off?’ I told her.
Her eyes widened as if gaining sudden insight. ‘Ah, but I see now. Not shameful, but frightening. You are afraid in such situations.’
She turned, spoke to the old doctor who nodded and they walked out on me before I could say a word. I wasn’t tired any more but I found it difficult to think straight. I felt as angry and frustrated as any schoolboy, humiliated before the class for no good reason.
I had just struggled back into my clothes when Madame Ny returned with the young officer. She had a paper in her hand which she placed on the desk.
She picked up a pen and offered it to me. ‘You will sign this now, please.’
There were five foolscap pages, closely typed and all in Chinese. ‘You’ll have to read the small print for me,’ I told her. ‘I haven’t got my spectacles with me.’
‘Your confession,’ the young officer cut in. ‘A factual account of your time in Vietnam as an English mercenary lured by the Americans.’
I told him what to do with the paper in an English phrase so vulgar that he obviously didn’t understand. But Madame Ny did.
She smiled faintly. ‘A physical impossibility, I fear, Mr Jackson. You will sign in the end, I assure you, but we have plenty of time. All the time in the world.’
She left again and the young officer told me to follow him. We crossed the compound through the rain and entered the monastery itself, a place of endless passages and worn stone steps although, surprisingly, lit by electricity.
The passage we finally turned into was obviously at the highest level, so long it faded into darkness; and, quite plainly, I heard a guitar.
As we advanced, the sound became even plainer and then someone started to sing a slow blues in a deep, mellow voice that reached out to touch everything around.
‘Now gather round me people, Let me tell you the true facts. That tough luck has struck me And the rats is sleeping in my hat.’
The door had two guards outside and was of heavy black oak. The young officer produced a key about twelve inches long to unlock it and it took both hands to turn.
The room was surprisingly large and lit by a single electric bulb. There was a rush mat on the stone floor and two wooden cots. St Claire sat on one of them a guitar across his knees.
He stopped playing. ‘Welcome to Liberty Hall, Eton. It isn’t much, but it’s the London Hilton compared to most of the accommodation around here.’
I don’t think I’ve ever been happier to see anyone in my life.
He produced a pack of American cigarettes. ‘You use these things?’
‘Officer’s stock?’ I said.
He shook his head. ‘They’re being nice to me at the moment. They might give me a pack a day for a whole month, or simply cut off the supply from tomorrow morning.’
‘Pavlovian conditioning?’
‘That’s it exactly. They have one set idea and you better get used to it. To drive you to the edge of insanity, to tear you apart, then they’ll put you together again in their image. Even their psychology is Marxian. They believe each of us has his thesis, his positive side and his antithesis, the dark side of his being. If they can find out what that is, they encourage its growth until it becomes the strongest part of your nature. Once that happens, you begin to doubt every moral or decent worthwhile thing you’ve been taught.’
‘They don’t seem to be getting very far with you.’
‘You could say I’m inclined to be set in my ways.’ He smiled. ‘But they’re still trying and my instructor is the best. Chen-Kuen himself. That’s just another name for interrogator, by the way.’
‘I’ve already met mine,’ I said and told him about Madame Ny and what had happened at the medical centre.
He listened intently and shook his head when I was finished. ‘I’ve never come across her myself, but then you won’t have contacts with many people at all. I haven’t met another prisoner face-to-face since I’ve been here. Even the sessions in the Indoctrination Centre, where they feed you Chinese and Marxism by the hour, are all strictly private. You sit in an enclosed booth with headphones and a tape recorder.’
I made the obvious point. ‘If what you’re saying is true, why have they put me in with you?’
‘Search me.’ He shrugged. ‘First I knew was when Chen-Kuen called me in, told me every last damn thing about you there was to know and said you’d be joining me.’
‘But there must be a purpose?’
‘You can bet your sweet life there is. Could be he just wants to observe our reactions. Two rats in a cage. That’s all we are to him.’
I kicked a chair out of the way, walked to one of the tiny windows and stared out into the rain.
St Claire said softly, ‘You’re too up-tight, son. You’ll need to cool it if you’re going to survive round here. The state you’re in now, you’d crack at the first turn of the screw.’
‘But not you,’ I said. ‘Not Black Max.’
He was off the bed and I was nailed to the wall. The face was devoid of all expression, carved from stone, the face of a man who would kill without the slightest qualm, had done so more times than he could probably remember.
He said very slowly in a voice like a cut-throat razor, ‘They have a room down below here they call the Box. I could tell you what it’s like, but you wouldn’t begin to understand. They locked the door on me for three weeks and I walked out. Three weeks of being back in the womb and I walked out.’
He released me and spun around like a kid, arms outstretched, smiling like the sun breaking through after rain.
‘Jesus, boy, but you should have seen their faces.’
‘How?’ I said. ‘How did you do it?’
He tossed me another cigarette. ‘You’ve got to be like the Rock of Gibraltar. So sure of yourself that nothing can touch you.’
‘And how do you get like that?’
He lay back, head pillowed on one arm. ‘I did a little judo at Harvard when I was a student. After the war, when I was posted to Japan with the occupation army, I took it further, mainly for something to do. First I discovered karate, then a lethal little item called aikido. I’m black belt in both.’
It was said casually, a statement of fact, no particular pride in the voice at all.
‘And then a funny thing happened,’ he continued. ‘I was taken to meet an old Zen priest, eighty or ninety years old and all of seven stone. The guy who took me was a judo black belt. In the demonstration that followed, the old man remained seated and he attacked him from the rear.’
‘What happened?’
‘The old man threw him time and time again. He told me afterwards that his power came from the seat of reflex control, what they call the tanden or second brain. Usually developed by long periods of meditation and special breathing exercises. It’s all just a Japanese development of the ancient Chinese art of Shaolin Temple Boxing and even that was imported from India with Zen Buddhism.’
He was beginning to lose me. ‘Just how far did you go with all this stuff yourself?’
‘Zen Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism. I’ve boned up on them all. Studied Chinese Boxing in every minute of my spare time for nearly four years at a Zen monastery about forty miles out of Tokyo in the mountains. I thought I knew it all when I started and found I knew nothing.’
‘And what’s it all come down to?’
‘Ever read the Daw-Der-Jung by Lao Tzu, the Old Master?’ He shrugged. ‘No, I guess you wouldn’t. He says, amongst other things, that when one wishes to expand one must first contract. When one wishes to rise, one must first fall. When one wishes to take, one must first give. Meekness can overcome hardness and weakness can overcome strength.’
‘And what in the hell is all that supposed to add up to?’
‘You’ve got to be able to relax completely, just like a cat. That way you develop ch’i. It’s a kind of intrinsic energy. When it’s accumulated in the tan t’ien, a point just below the navel, it has an elemental force greater than any physical strength can hope to be. There are various breathing exercises which can help you along the way. A kind of self-hypnotism.’
He proceeded to explain one in detail and the whole thing seemed so ridiculous that for the first time it occurred to me that his imprisonment might have affected him for the worst.
I suppose it must have shown on my face for he laughed out loud. ‘You think I’m crazy, don’t you? Well, not yet, boy. Not by a mile and a half. You listen to me and maybe you stand a ten percent chance of getting through this place in one piece. And now I’d get some sleep if I were you while you’ve got the chance.’
He dismissed me by picking up a book, a paperback edition of The Thoughts of MaoTse-tung. By then, I was past caring about anything. Even the short walk to my bed was an effort.
But the straw mattress seemed softer than anything I had ever known, the sensation of easing aching limbs almost masochistic in the pleasure it gave. I closed my eyes, poised on the brink of sleep and started to slither into darkness, all tension draining out of me. A bell started to jangle somewhere inside my head, a hideous frightening clamour that touched the raw nerve endings like a series of electric shocks.
I was aware of St Claire’s warning cry and the door burst open and the young officer who had delivered me re-appeared, a dozen soldiers at his back and three of them with bayonets fixed to their AKs. They pinned St Claire to the wall, roaring like a caged tiger. The others were armed only with truncheons.
